Issue 5: To Be a Living Ancestor

Visual art submissions

What do we do with our time on Earth?

What do we do with our human vitality, creativity, and intellectual power?

What does legacy mean as interdependent creatures, and how do we embody it?

In this issue of our Literary Anthology, we wish to explore our humanity through a sacred lens. As beings of the Earth, we begin a physical ancestral journey as soon as we’re born. There is wisdom that lives through and beyond each of us, and there is wisdom waiting to be created through our individual and collective life experiences.

Through the body, through what is woven, through our choices, through what is passed down, through forgetting, through remembering, through breaking apart, through union, through birth, through completion — what can it mean To Be A Living Ancestor? Not an individual only looking to those who came before for guidance, but an individual genuinely, messily, intentionally (or unconsciously), living their ancestral experience?

May the following themes spark meaningful movement in your reflection and creation:

Magic in the mundane

Joys of domesticity

Honoring the Earth

Time as a gift

The lifespan of grief in the body

Living acts of service 

Developing one’s medicine

Evolution through presence

Weaving, craft, and storytelling

Food as medicine, cooking as craft

Memory, loss, rage

Messages from the trees

Ritual, altar-keeping, living as a sanctuary

Sacred motherhood, fatherhood, parenthood

For five years, we have published expressions from only women of color on this platform. For this issue, we joyfully welcome submissions from both women and men of color. Let’s see (& learn) how feminine and masculine voices harmonize in our unique exploration of soulful literature and art.

We’re excited to consider any rendering of visual art to include in Issue 5 in alignment with our theme: photography, painting, collage, digital media, textile art, figure art, sculpture, experimental art, intuitive art — let your authentic creative power glow bright.

As you prepare to share your artwork with us, if you desire to fortify and nourish your authentic creativity, please engage in any part of our Creative Enrichment Studio — 1-1 coaching, online immersions, and self-paced courses. We are here to support you beyond this publication.

For the cover, we’ll choose the artwork that best encapsulates Issue 5’s theme and the selected writing. Aside from the cover, your submission will also be considered for inclusion in the issue itself.

Details about Issue 5:

  • Submission window: January 19 - March 15, 2026 at 11:59 pm PST

  • Writers will be notified if their submission is selected by April 27. 2026.

  • Issue 5 will launch in May 2026.

Submit your visual art

There is a USD $5 fee for each submission. All submission fees support the costs and maintenance of this publication and platform.

General Guidelines

  • You may submit up to 4 pieces of artwork for consideration. Please ensure all pieces are high-quality images in PNG or JPG. Ensure each piece has its own title.

  • Themes to keep in mind + heart while considering your submission: Love, Body, Spirituality, Wellness, Identity

  • You are welcome to submit your visual art if you identify as a woman or man of color. If you do not, but are passionate about this platform and opportunity, please extend your passion by sharing this opportunity with a special woman or man of color artist in your life.

  • All submissions must be original and unpublished; we do not accept previously published submissions, either in print or digitally. We ask for First Electronic and Archival Rights: your selected submission will first be shared through our digital Literary Anthology before it is published elsewhere. We will then archive your work to be accessed for future purposes/inspiration/teaching. By submitting your work, you agree to this.

  • The contents of your submission are original and your sole creation — no AI is used at all. We embrace your authentic creative intelligence.

  • There is a USD $5 fee for each submission. All submission fees support the costs and maintenance of this important publication.

  • We hold your submissions in strict confidence and privacy, whether or not they are published. Your submission will only be seen by the Wellspringwords® editorial team.

  • We do not offer monetary compensation at this time. If you desire to support our initiative of empowering artists, you may contact us to discuss sponsorship opportunities.

As you prepare to join us, please take some time to read our About page and to enjoy the many published pieces by other talented women of color, found here.

More about contributing to the Wellspringwords® Literary Anthology:

  • Explore your authentic Self, your wisdom within, and your creative expression.

  • Add to your portfolio of published artwork.

  • Contributors are eligible to become a Guest Editor for future Issues of the publication.

  • Join the Wellspringwords® community of writers and artists from around the world.

  • For Issue 5, must identify as a woman or man of color/woman or man of the global majority.

  • Artwork must align with the essence of Wellspringwords® — connecting to your deep, authentic Self, and expressing that creatively.

Submit your visual art